Writers have an
interesting job, to say the least. We use every spare moment we can manage to
sit in front of the computer (or typewriter, for the few who still use it, or
pen(cil) and paper) and write until we've developed severe cases of tendonitis
or carpal tunnel, and then keep writing anyway. We daydream about imaginary
worlds and cry when we kill of characters that don't actually exist except in
our minds and stories and we spend months or years slaving away at a manuscript
that may never see the light of day.

We say things like, "Yes,
it's a gorgeous day outside, but I must write this chapter," or,
"Wow, I'm starving and haven't eaten in six hours BUT THIS SCENE. I MUST
FINISH WRITING IT." Then we give our stories to other people and hope that
they tear it apart (yes, hope) so that we can sew it back together (into
hopefully something even better) with trembling fingers and bruised egos. Then,
when all is said and done, we torture ourselves over writing these nightmarish
things called a synopsis and query letter and we send them to professionals or
we upload them online and bite are fingernails down to little nubs.

Yes, we writers are an interesting
lot. Some may even say we're masochists (and who knows? They might be right).

But while a writer's number one
goal is to improve his or her writing, remaining sane is also somewhat (ok, really) important. So here are some tips
on how not to go crazy while embracing the life of the writer.

Go out. It's very easy for writers to
adopt some hermit-like qualities while in the midst of writing a book. I often
have to remind myself (and have others remind me) to go out and breathe some
fresh air and have a change of scenery. You'll be glad you did, especially when
you don't go stir-crazy.

Don't look back. After you send a query or partial
or full manuscript to an agent or publisher or critique partner/beta reader, it
can be very tempting for writers to glance back at what you wrote. You think to
yourself, one little peek won't hurt, then—BAM. You find a typo. ON THE FIRST
PAGE. Oh and that sentence makes no sense. And that paragraph is stupid. And,
and, and...

Don't do this to yourself. What's
been sent has been sent. No go write something else. Read a book. Anything. But
for the love of all things fluffy and adorable, do NOT look back.

Stop comparing. I'm relatively sure every writer
has fallen into this trap at least once (I know I sure have), but there are
absolutely no positive results from comparing yourself to other writers. It
doesn't help you in any way to remind yourself that Christopher Paolini wrote
and published his first book when he was fifteen or that you could write a
better book than Twilight (or any other published book out there). It doesn't
help you write your next book and it doesn't help your confidence, either. So
stop it.

Keep writing. When you've received well over a
hundred rejection slips— keep writing. When you've trunked your third novel and
you wonder if you'll ever be published— keep writing. When you have someone
reading your WIP and you're terrified they're going to hate it— keep writing.
Nothing reminds you better why you're subjecting yourself to this emotional
roller coaster than finishing another novel. Than working on the next WIP.

As someone very wise once told me, "Keep doing it for yourself and eventually someone else will catch
on."

I've always been slightly
envious of writers who could maintain a journal. Journal-writing just seemed
like a very writerly thing to do (to me, at least)—as natural as, say, a cook
keeping a running cookbook.

So when my feeble attempts at
maintaining a journal (and there have been many) fell flat, I felt a little
silly. I was a writer, for crying out loud. Why was it so difficult to
think up of a couple entries a week to document my life?

I think the conclusion I
eventually came to was that while I had no problem spending hours a day in
made-up worlds, torturing my characters or writing blog posts, for that matter,
I just didn't find writing about my day, or week, or whatever span of time,
nearly as interesting. I'd write a couple journal entries over the course of a
few days, then get distracted, and, ultimately, bored.

As much as I wanted it to be,
journal-writing just didn't come naturally to me. It was something I had to
force, something that I didn't want to force. I conceded to trying to
write just a couple entries a year (and sometimes less...oh well).

Maybe in the future I'll be able
to maintain a journal or maybe I'll forever be one of those writers who
just...doesn't. But while writing a journal isn't something that works
particularly well for me, I know there are many writers out there who swear by
it, who find writing the entries cathartic, or who just enjoy having something
to look back on later in life (which I completely understand—it's one of the main
reasons I still hope to one day pick up the habit of writing journal entries).

There is a lesson in all this, I
think, namely that even the most basic of writing habits doesn't work for
everyone. You see, that's the great thing about writers (well, the great thing
about everyone, really)—we're all so
diverse and interesting and what works for one writer doesn't necessarily work
for another and that's ok. It's something to be celebrated, even,
because how boring would it be if everyone worked exactly the same way?

We all think, speak and process
the world in different ways, which is what makes our writing so unique. And I
wouldn't want it to be any different.

When thinking about
publishing, it's hard not to mention the market and the various trends that
inevitably appear in the reading/ writing world. With Harry Potter came
various books about witches and wizards, with the rise of Twilight came
the explosion of paranormal novels, especially those involving vampires and
creatures of the like, and now more recently with the success of The Hunger
Games , dystopian novels have become very popular.

So when slaving away at their WIPs
and rummaging through bookstores, writers often wonder how much they should be
paying attention to the market while they write their books.

While I think it's important for
writers to be aware of what publishing trends are rising in the book market
(and, conversely, what is becoming more difficult to sell), and while I think
it's especially important for writers to be well versed in their genre, I truly
believe that it's far more important for writers to write the stories they want
to write regardless of what's going on in the market.

Hear me out. The state of the
publishing market is something that is completely out of the writer's control.
What's more, it's a well-known fact that what is popular today probably won't
be the hot in-thing in five years. That's not to say it won't be selling then,
but publishing trends only last so long.

Writing a book, meanwhile, takes
an excruciatingly long time. Even if you're a ridiculously prolific writer who can
pound out a first draft in a month and revise in three and you either a)
self-publish four months after writing the first draft with a fantastically
revised novel done in record speed or b)
manage to find an agent and land a publishing contract immediately (which
usually takes time), in the case of the self-published writer it takes time to
build buzz for your book, and in the case of the traditionally published writer
it can take up to two years (or more, even) just to get that story on the
shelves. By the time that novel is released (or really builds up buzz), who
knows what the market will look like?

Then of course, there's the
opposite problem of writers who write to a trend that already passed because
they love the genre and spend time worrying about whether or not it'll be able to
sell. Again, the state of the publishing market is something out of our control. The energy spent
worrying about the trends could be spent bettering your book, instead.

Look, I'm not an agent or a
publishing expert, nor will I pretend to be. But from what I understand, (and I could be wrong here) if
you're looking to publish traditionally, very few agents are going to turn down
an excellent story that they absolutely love just because you "missed the
boat" so-to-speak, as far as trends go. And by the same token, very few agents
(or publishing companies) are going to pick up a mediocre story that was
written quickly just to fit the current market.

And I suspect it's not all that
different for self-published writers: a good book is going to sell regardless
of publishing trends and a mediocre book that fits the market, well, not so
much.

In short, I think it's important
for writers to be aware of the market, but it's far more important for writers
to focus on writing a fantastic book. If you can manage that, your book will
find a place in the market regardless of what the trends look like.

Now it's your turn: Do you think
writers should write to the market? How important is it for writers to be aware
of the publishing trends?

It's no secret that most writers
write with the goal of eventually getting published. Regardless of whether the
goal is traditional or self publishing, many writers toil away for years all
the while reaching for the title of published author.

And it's a fair dream—an exciting,
if not slightly nerve-wracking one, to think of hundreds or thousands of people
reading the story that you wrote. The story that you spent years of your life
writing. The story that would not exist if you hadn't written it.

But I've seen this question asked
before, and truth be told, at the beginning of my journey as a writer, I didn't
want to answer it. I saw writers ask, "Would you keep writing if you knew
you were never going to be published?" and I thought, well I'm not
going to answer that because I am going to get published.

Well it's been years since I've
first seen that question and I'm still not published, but the question has
never really left my mind. And I think the reason I didn't want to answer it at
first was because I wasn't sure I would keep writing. Without the dream,
I thought, what was the point?

Years and many archived
manuscripts later, I think I've come to terms with the question. Because no,
there isn't any guarantee that I'm ever going to get published (traditionally,
anyway) and I've come to realize that I'm ok with that. Sure, it's still a
dream I hold on to and I truly believe that with enough patience and hard work,
any writer can see their dream realized, but there isn't ever a 100% guarantee
unless you self-publish (and even then, there's no guarantee that it'll sell).

So now when I see the question
"would you keep writing if you knew you were never going to be
published?" I think I can answer with a yes. Because no, I probably
wouldn't put as much work and time into each story as I do now, but I truly
don't believe I would stop writing altogether.

Because writing is more than just
chasing the dream: writers write to discover the story, to create new
characters and worlds and turn our experiences into words on the page that we
can read over and over again and share with others (even if, in the case of the
never-published writer, "others" is just a handful of friends and
family).

Because yes, every writer hopes to
one day get published but that's not the only reason we write (or at least, it
shouldn't be)—we write because we love it. Because there's something truly
special about translating experiences into words, about using just the right
combination of letters to create pictures and emotions in our readers.

Because a writer without words is
like a bird without wings. Because published or not, writing is what we writers
do.

Now it's your turn: Would you keep
writing if you somehow knew you would never get published?

So that wonderfully fantastic thing happened again when one
of you amazing people suggested a topic that I could have sworn I’d covered, except it turns out I’d only ever touched on,
because when talking about discipline, one of you lovely commenters (you know
who you are—thank you!) posted this:

“I don’t know if you’ve ever discussed this already, but one
thing I thought might be interesting, is your views on when to start new
stories. Such as, you are working on one novel and have another great idea. Do
you keep finishing the first one and then work on the second even if your
enthusiasm dips or do you start the new one immediately and use that enthusiasm
to your advantage?”

I think this is a fantastic question because there is little
doubt in my mind that most writers (if not all) experience what I like to call
Shiny New Idea Syndrome at one point or another throughout their writing
careers.

For those of you who aren’t acquainted with this beast, Shiny New Idea
Syndrome occurs when you’re in the middle of a WIP, and suddenly—BAM—a brand
new tantalizing idea sneak-attacks you and starts whispering things like, don’t you want to write me? or hey, hey, why won’t you take a break from
that other story and try something new? You know you want to, and makes you
wonder why you’re even bothering with this other
WIP when that Shiny New Idea is so much better.

Once Shiny New Idea Syndrome has attacked, a writer is faced
with two options: continue with the first WIP and remember the Shiny New Idea
for a later WIP, or put the first WIP aside and start writing the Shiny New
Idea immediately.

As our fantabulous commenter mentioned, some writers worry
that if they continue with their first WIP and leave the Shiny New Idea for
later, their enthusiasm for the new project will fade, making it more difficult
to write later on. And while this is a perfectly legitimate fear because yes,
that does tend to happen with some
ideas, I truly believe that if when the time comes to sit down and put the
Shiny New Idea to paper, you’re no longer excited about the project, then it
probably wasn’t a strong enough idea to be written into a novel in the first
place.

I’ve
talked about this before, so I’m not going to go into detail again, but in
short, writing a novel is a very involved process that takes huge amounts of
time, and if you can’t maintain enthusiasm for a new project idea while
finishing a WIP you already started, then chances are you would have found it
difficult to maintain that enthusiasm through the long months (or years) it
takes to write and revise and revise and rewrite and edit a novel.

If, however, you do
finish the first project and the Shiny New Idea is still there, tapping you on
the shoulder and demanding that you get to work, then I’d say that’s a pretty
good sign that you have something good on your hands. Something that isn’t just
a fleeting temptation. An actual, lasting novel-worthy idea.

Because the real danger of the Shiny New Idea Syndrome is
this: oftentimes writers find when they switch projects to satisfy a Shiny New
Idea, part-way through that new WIP another
Shiny New Idea comes along that’s so
much better than the one you’re working on now, and before you know it you’ve
started four new projects and haven’t finished anything. I hear about this from writers all the time,
especially new writers who haven’t finished a project before because Shiny New
Idea Syndrome is a sneaky little thing.

That’s not to say that Shiny New Idea Syndrome doesn’t ever
give you good ideas—it can certainly drop a perfectly sound novel-worthy idea
into your mind. But I truly believe the first test of its novel worthiness is
whether or not you can sustain that new-idea enthusiasm even if you don’t
immediately begin writing it.

Because a truly novel-worthy idea will still be there
waiting for you when you finish your first project.

So that’s my take on Shiny New Idea Syndrome. What do you think? If a
Shiny New Idea hit you while working on a project, would you continue with the
first project or start working on the new one? Have you ever experienced Shiny
New Idea Syndrome?

There's a funny little
truth about writing that people tend to forget: namely, that no one is forcing
you to write. Writers don't write because someone is holding a gun to their
head demanding that they write another novel (at least, not a literal one... I
hope). Even writers who write for a living have the option of not writing and
getting a job doing something else, if they really
wanted to quit.By and large, however, especially
for unpublished writers, we write because we want to. Because the thought of
not writing is more painful than forcing ourselves to sit down and actually get
words on paper. Because we are, to our very cores, writers.Sounds great, doesn't it? We
writers have the fantastic opportunity of doing something that we love whenever
and wherever we want for (nearly) free, with only time constraints and life
things to get in the way.But there is a downside, namely,
that no one is forcing us to write.Allow me to explain. In a normal
nine to five job, if an employee decides that they don't feel like working, or
they're too tired to work, or too stressed out, or whatever it may be, most
times said employee can't just decide not to work, at least, not for very long.
Most bosses don't care if you had a rough night and would rather sleep in and
enjoy a nice hot cup of coffee or tea instead of getting up early for the job.
As a contracted employee, you have to work. Period.But when it comes to unpublished
writers, that's not exactly the case. There are a million and two reasons not
to write: you're too busy, too tired, too sick, too exhausted from your other
job/ school/ parenting/ all of the above, or you just can't think of anything
to write today. Especially when your writing isn't paying the bills, it can be
difficult to find motivation to continue.In short, writing requires a huge
amount of discipline.Writing is a choice. A passion.
And it's a lot of work that often goes unrewarded and mostly unappreciated for
years. This is something you have to accept when you set out to be a writer.
It's an unavoidable truth, and without enough discipline, chances are you won't
last.I'm not saying that to be mean;
it's just the truth. I see writers all the time who say they can't write
because they've been hit with a terrible case of writer's block, or because
they're not in the writing mood, or a hundred other reasons. And that's all
good and well for a day, maybe two, but when you allow those excuses to
accumulate, you'll soon find it's been a couple months and you haven't made any
progress in your writing at all, and where has the time gone?Discipline isn't optional for
writers — it's a necessity if you hope to ever take your writing seriously.
Because the only one demanding that you write is you, and if you don't keep
yourself motivated, if you don't keep yourself writing, you may soon find that
you've lost time you could have used to improving your craft to no one but
yourself.What do you think? Am I
overstating how important discipline is for writers? How important is
discipline to you?

So, even though I have over 600 songs in my iTunes library
(an amateur collection compared to some, I know), when writing, Pandora is my
best friend. Usually.

I’ve heard some writers say that they need absolute silence
while writing, while others swear by writing to music. Some have writing
playlists and others like myself prefer a more eclectic mix, depending on
what’s being written.

For any of you who’ve read my blog for more than a couple of
weeks, it probably comes as no surprise to you that my music-listening habits
depend largely on the writing session. While first-drafting and trying to spit
out as many words as my fingers will allow in a crazy, half-hour writing
sprint, I usually turn Pandora on and listen to my Shinee radio.

Shinee is a
Korean band, so the station is filled with mostly Korean pop, which is helpful
for two reasons: firstly I don’t understand most of the words, so it doesn’t
interfere with my thought process (most, because I’ve discovered many Korean
bands like to sing parts of their songs in English or throw random English
words into their songs…go figure), and secondly the upbeat music helps me to
keep a quick writing pace.

Naturally there are downsides to using Pandora while
writing, namely when a particularly distracting song comes on and I have to
pause my writing to skip the song (or worse—when I run out of skips and have to
listen to it anyway or else switch to an English-speaking station), and I’ve
come to realize that if you listen to a song enough times, regardless of the
language, your brain will start to learn the lyrics (or at least mine does), so
I do occasionally find myself singing random Korean-sounding words while I’m
supposed to be writing. Oops.

However, as you might imagine, when first-drafting a
particularly emotional or intense scene, it can be a little difficult to focus
in the right mood with happy Pop music in the background, and that’s when I
either switch to a rock station or write in silence.

When I’m not
first-drafting, and I really need to focus on choosing the right words, I tend
to prefer silence (although there are exceptions). In those instances, any type
of noise can be distracting, especially if I’m already struggling to put words
down. This also applies to editing—listening to music while editing is very
near impossible for me, regardless of the language of the music. Silence (or
near-silence) is a must while editing.

So those are my music-writing-editing habits. But I’m
curious: do you listen to music while writing or editing, or do you write in
silence? Why?

Sometimes, when I’m
between WIPs and books and blog posts and I find myself drumming my fingers on
my desk and spending way too much time checking Twitter /tumblr /Facebook /Twitter /e-mail,
I go through my documents and start pulling out some of my old writing.

And sometimes, it can be embarrassing encouraging to
see some of my writing from last year or three or five years ago, because it
gives me a pretty good idea of how much my writing has improved over time. And
sometimes it’ll remind me of the ideas I had and inspire me to write something
new and brainstorm with new WIP ideas and play with words for a while.

But other times I look at my old writing and remember why I
put it in the (virtual) drawer to begin with.

As writers, unless we experience some sort of computer (or
non-computer) related catastrophe that destroys all archived copies of our
writing, we’ll always have the files
waiting to be opened again. And as we writers tend to be a perfectionistic
bunch, it can sometimes be a little painful to venture into the database of our
previously archived writings.

But I think there’s a lot that can be learned from
occasionally looking back at where we started with fresh, more experienced
eyes. Because while the flaws in our writing from a couple years ago may stand
out as if a neon sign was pointing at them and dancing around in little
circles, flaws in our writing from, say, yesterday, are much harder to find.
And although we’d like to think that we’ve improved so much from our archived writings that we won’t find any of the same mistakes, chances are
that’s not the case, regardless of how much we’ve improved.

Being aware of the flaws in our writing from a couple months
or years ago can help us not to make the same mistakes again when we work on a
new WIP. And even if we don’t go through our old work with a fine-toothed comb
to try to pick out all the little mistakes on the page, just knowing what
elements didn’t work in an old WIP can make it infinitely easier to avoid them
in our newer manuscripts.

So next time you’re between WIPs and books and blog posts
and you find yourself using the interwebs to entertain you for a while, take a couple
minutes to go through your documents and pull out some of your old writing. You
never know what you might gain from the experience.

Do you read your old writing? If so, does it help? If you don’t, why
not?

Contrary to popular belief, a writer must be more than a
person who just writes. Of course writing is our primary goal, but in order to
write authentically, we must first be vigilant observers. All the time.

You see, we writers have a pretty unique job; we are tasked
with a mission to bring the impossible to life on the page, to create stories
that pluck our readers from their everyday lives and to bring attention to
details of the world around them that ring perfectly true.

But in order to
achieve that, we must first observe the world around us. When there’s a wicked
thunderstorm and the trees are bowing to the wind and the claps of thunder and
lightning send most people searching for their flashlights, the writer should
be listening and watching very carefully, while asking, how would I describe this?

When overwhelmed with emotion—whether it’s happiness, anger,
frustration or something else—writers must pause and pay attention to exactly how they feel so that when their
characters experience the same emotion, it can be described with authenticity. A
great example of this is one of my favorite passages from The
Fault in Our Stars by John
Green:

“Much of my life had been
devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what
Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that
if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but A Sadness
in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and
you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you
swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the
person who loves you and smile.” (Page 213-214)

I know that seems like a pretty depressing favorite passage, but the
reason it stuck out to me so much is because when I read it for the first time,
I nodded along and thought, yes, it’s
exactly like that. Granted, my way of thinking when upset is pretty different
from Hazel’s (the POV character), but the clenching of teeth and looking up at
the ceiling and swallowing when your throat is so tight it’s painful are all
things I’m sure many of us have experienced when trying not to cry.

This example is less literal than the first, but I think we
all know the feeling Juliette (the POV character) is referencing.

Our goal as writers is to take every day real things and
translate them into words that remind our readers of that exact moment. That
ring true and honest and have them nodding along and saying yes, that’s it, it’s just like that. But
in order to do that we must first pay attention to everything, all the time,
and take mental (or real) notes as we move through our lives and experience the
world.

Then after observing, we translate those moments back into
words so that we can share them with someone else.

Have you ever encountered a sentence or passage that felt exactly
right?

Roughly a year ago (on May 6th 2011, to be
exact), I did this thing where I started a blog. It was very tan and red then,
and the banner wasn’t half as attractive (think: block of red with white text
on it) and there was a hugenormous picture of books in the background because I
like books.

Roughly a year ago I put up my very first post
ever, in which I rambled a lot and might have said something about tying the
metaphorical manifestation of writing to a chair and shoving Ritalin down her
throat and I might have mentioned brownies a couple of times. I’ll admit it was
a strange first post.

I bring this up because a year ago when I launched
Writability, I never imagined that twelve months later I’d have over 100,000
pageviews and so many amazing followers. And I’m not saying that to brag—I just
want to thank you guys, because after putting up my first post I thought, well, if one person reads this and likes it,
it’ll be worth it, and well…you’ve made this experience more than worth it.

I’ve learned so much from this blog, from the fantastic
discussions with you amazing commenters, from forcing myself to think up three
posts a week, even when I was sure I wouldn’t be able to think of anything.

If you’re new to this blog, then I want to welcome you and
say thanks for stopping by. I hope you stick around enjoy interacting with the
Writability community here as much as I do.

If you’ve been a follower and you’ve joined the discussion,
then I want to thank you for your wonderful support. Your input, advice and
opinions have made this experience an incredible one. An extra thanks to Daniel Swensen, Jennifer Bennett, Susan Sipal, Matthew Rowe and Jeremy Feijten for being such
awesome and active community members.

If you’ve been a follower and you haven’t really commented
before, I want to thank you for your silent support, and I hope that you’ll
join the discussion someday soon.

In short if you’re here, reading my words, then you have my
gratitude. All of you are amazing, so thank you. Thank you.

In celebration of Writability’s first birthday I’d like to
share with you the top five most popular posts thus far, as chosen by your
fantastic support:

I’d always heard it was good for writers to read their work
out loud, but the value of doing so didn’t really hit me until I really started
delving into revisions.

With my first few WIPs, I actually read my work out loud as
I was writing the first draft…to family members. It became this sort of thing with my family where I would read
the draft (often a chapter at a time) up until the point where I’d stopped
writing and they would look at me and say and?
And I would shrug and say, I don’t know.
That’s where I’m at. Which was usually followed by get back to work.

While I now cringe at the thought of reading the first draft
to anyone, I’ve since learned that
reading subsequent drafts out loud is especially helpful after you've done a
couple of rounds of revision and your eyes start to glaze over when you try to
read your WIP again.

You see, most of us know that if you read something a
certain amount of times and you become familiar with the text, your brain
starts to skip over things. It stops noticing typos and awkward sentences and
words that you’ve used way too many
times and when “it is” should be “it was” or he accidentally becomes she.

When you read your work out loud, however, you start to
notice those things again. You’ll stumble over a sentence and squint at it and
realize just how awkward it sounds, or you’ll be reading a sentence about your
male protagonist and say, “then she went” and realize—quite suddenly—that your
mistake just changed the gender of your main character. And while your brain
may forget that you’ve said a certain word too many times, your ears will
notice when you say gaze again and
again and again.

The best part? You
don’t need to read aloud to anyone in particular.

You can read to your dog, your fish, your one-eyed gerbil
Alfredo, or your child’s collection of stuffed animals. Bonus points if you can
drag/bribe/coerce someone into listening to your story as you read it out loud,
because then you can gage their reaction during various parts of your WIP (did
he fall asleep during your action scene? Laugh at something that wasn’t
supposed to be funny? etc.), but if not, it’s ok because the exercise is really
for you, anyway.

Reading your work out loud allows you to pick up on
inconsistencies, breaks in flow and all those little errors that your brain
decided to ignore while you last read it. As long as you don’t mind looking
slightly crazy while reading to an empty room (or not), I highly recommend
trying it out.

Have you ever read your WIP out loud? If so, was it helpful? If not,
why not?

It seems that everyone is writing a novel (or planning
to/thinking about writing one) these days. With the age of personal computers
and other computing devices booming, it’s not uncommon to hear about
so-and-so’s Aunt Gilberta who’s going to write a soon-to-be bestselling novel
about her enlightenment on the human condition.

But for every writer who is toiling away at their computers
every day, pouring their heart and soul into their manuscripts, there are many
more staring at their computer screens, wondering where to start.

And thusly I introduce to you fifteen easy steps to writing
a novel:

Open up a
Word (or other word processing document). Once opened, stare at the abyss
that is the blank, white screen for at least a full minute. Think about the
enormous task you have ahead of you and how you have to fill not only one of
these screens, but somewhere around 300 of them. Stare some more.

Check
Twitter. And Facebook. And tumblr. And Twitter again. Spend at least an
hour checking your feed and reblogging/retweeting/sharing
interesting/funny/adorable posts with your fellow followers/fans/friends. The
last thing you want is to neglect your social media presence while working on
the book.

Stare at
the blank document again. Crack your fingers (if you do that sort of
thing). Stretch a little and run your fingers over the keyboard. Breathe.

Decide
you’re hungry. How are you supposed to write if all you can think about is
food? Go treat yourself to a Starbucks. Or a brownie. Or whatever suits your
fancy.

Call your
Mother and tell her about the amazing book you’re writing. Hell, call all of your relatives and tell them
about it. Oh, and that girl you used to talk to in high school—she should know,
too. In fact, why don’t you post about it on Facebook? Then everyone will know
about your masterpiece.

Pack up
your laptop and bring it to the nearest café. That’s what writers do,
right? They bring their laptops to cafés and crank out works of literary
genius.

Check
your Twitter and e-mail again. It’s been too long since you last checked
it. What if the Twittersphere had collapsed in your absence and left a
horrible, gaping black hole on the internet that sucked everything else into
it? Oh, it’s still there? Good. Carry on.

Stare at
the blank document again (again). This time it’s real. You can feel it—the
inspiration is reaching towards you through the coffee-saturated air and jazzy
music. The people are all watching. The next words you write will go down in
history as pure genius.

For much of my journey as
a writer, I was aware of this thing called voice. I knew what it was, for the
most part, and the theory behind how to develop it (that is, write and read a
lot). I knew that an author's voice was different from a character's voice,
but it wasn't until I started writing in first person that I came to realize
that one can overpower the other.

In my case, my writer voice was
way overpowering my character's voice (a problem, especially in first person)
and this revelation forced me to stop and rethink how I view voice.

You see, your writer voice
develops naturally over time—it's something that threads together with every
word you write and every sentence you read. It evolves gradually, naturally
into something that is you, into your mark on the page.

But the character voice — that's
an entirely different battle, because your character's voice is not
the same as your voice. Not even close.

I've been following John Green's
"Only If You Finished The Fault in Our Stars" tumblr, and oftentimes
people have asked him why he had Hazel or Augustus (the book's two main
characters) say or think something. The most popular of these questions was why
Hazel states at the beginning of the novel that V for Vendetta is a “boy movie,” and whether he believes V for Vendetta to be a "boy
movie." I found part of his answer particularly interesting (and
relevant, so bear with me):

"I am not a sixteen-year-old girl
with stage IV cancer named Hazel Grace Lancaster, so I did not call V for Vendetta
a boy movie. I was writing from her perspective, and it’s really important to
note that it’s not necessarily my perspective. So I think HAZEL (at least
beginning of the novel Hazel) would consider V for Vendetta a boy movie. I
generally do not attach gender to films or other works of art, as it seems like
a weird thing to do."

What he's hitting on here is
golden advice for any writer: we are not our characters. I mean, we are in the
sense that we create and develop them, but by no means are we them (because if
we are, we have a new problem, namely, that you're writing a Mary Sue into your
story, which is an entirely different post (and problem) on its own).

Your voice — that is, the voice of
the writer — must be different from your characters' voices (unless you're
writing an autobiography, in which case, carry on).

For me, that revelation meant
having to rewrite my WIP while constantly asking myself if this is something my
protagonist would think or say. I won't pretend it wasn't a lot of work, but I came
out of it with an entirely new perspective on developing and writing
characters.

How do you develop character
voices? Have you ever found your writer voice was overpowering your character
voice? How did you fix it?